With 20 wheeled loaders and nine excavators on the fleet, operating at the company’s demolition recycling, aggregate and bagging sites throughout the South East, Day Aggregates is looking for maximum productivity with minimal downtime. The firm has therefore opted to have the CareTrack system installed on all of its Volvo equipment, allowing Mr Holmes a real-time overview of machine performance, wherever it is working.
CareTrack allows him to see at a glance exactly what is happening with every Volvo loader and excavator on the fleet, preventing abuse and maximising productivity across the fleet. The system uses a combination of GSM and GPRS mobile systems, ensuring that the machines can communicate with Volvo wherever they may be operating. Each loader or excavator’s electronic control unit transmits information to Volvo’s data centre, providing customers like Day Aggregates with real-time access through the CareTrack internet window. In the event of urgent updates and alarms, the customer is contacted by e-mail and text to ensure that they are kept fully up to date, even when not logged in. By receiving the notifications in ‘real-time’ allows potential problems to be dealt with quickly in order to prevent them from becoming a major issue. In addition CareTrack provides users with collated reports, which can be requested, or automatically sent, on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
Fuel economy and the environment are also taken care of with CareTrack. By providing fuel consumption and idle times through too operating modes, the information can be used to identify areas for reducing carbon emissions and fuel consumption. Whilst CareTrack provides the measures, Volvo’s Eco-Operator training package delivers the ability for customers to enjoy the savings. With its money back guarantee customers have nothing to lose by taking advantage of the training on offer.
As well as vital machine operating data, CareTrack can be used to show less critical but equally useful fleet information, such as whether operators are refuelling before shut-down at the end of the day or if they are leaving machines empty overnight, which can lead to condensation forming in the tank.
The system can also be used to geofence and timefence equipment, triggering alarms if the machines are taken beyond the site boundaries or used when they should be standing, which can be important for a hire firm. “It helps us to see what is happening on a day to day basis,” says Mr Holmes.
The company runs a mix of L110F, L120F, L180F and L180G wheeled loaders, with excavators ranging from the EC360C to the latest EC380D. All of the Volvo equipment is supplied with a Silver level Customer Service Agreement, allowing Day to reduce the risk of sudden unexpected spending across the fleet. “Our company replacement policy is five years or 10,000 hours,” says Mr Holmes.
However the older machines can be kept on as floating spare models at sites where the loader is critical to production levels. With the latest G series loader Mr Holmes has also specified
CareTrack is more than simply a telematic system. It is an essential component in Volvo’s total service care solution, providing cus- tomers with the real-time information that allows plant managers to make decisions and lower operating costs. It helps customers to plan and budget for regular preventative maintenance, in partnership with their local Volvo depot, reducing downtime and boosting effective operating time.
As Sir Francis Bacon once noted: “Knowledge is power.” Care- Track provides Volvo customers with the power to effectively manage their fleets, and to maximise productivity.
extended warranties from Volvo, to cover the full five year/10,000 hour operating period. “Everything that I buy now will be specified with a five year/10,000 hour enhanced warranty,” he says. “Volvo has modified its warranty to include other items as well as the drivetrain. We find that Volvo is by far the most flexible with warranties,” says Mr Holmes.
Indeed it is this flexibility between the extended warranty and the service agreement, monitored through the CareTrack system, that provides him with total control over the fleet, both in operational and financial terms. “It is the flexibility that allows us to decide how much we spend on the service agreement on an hourly rate for each machine,” says Mr Holmes. “I can move funds between machines to minimise bills and when I review quarterly, I can look at the age of the machine and the CareTrack information and change the rate to suit each operation. For a company to pay up front at a rate that they can afford has to be better.”
The benefits don’t stop with operation of the machine either. CareTrack, in combination with Volvo’s Matris diagnostic system, can easily be used to show a machine’s complete operating history. “With Volvo you get a better residual value anyway,” says Mr Holmes. “But with CareTrack and Matris you can demonstrate that you are ‘one careful owner’ and how the machine has been looked after.”
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